


Run

by havisham



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:28:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love, he thought, made him swift, though lust and anger acted as sharper goads.</p><p>Written for Porn Battle XIV, with the prompts: leaves, flee, promises, skin, possession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run

Apollo burned for her, until he grew incandescent with frustration. She rejected him, she yawned at the sight of his bulging godhead, and Apollo had grown embarrassed and hid himself away. Though, of course, he did not go very far. 

Daphne, the impudent river’s daughter, untangled her hair, black and green in the shifting light. Her brown skin, shining with water droplets, demanded to be touched. But she looked up, her eyes like flints, and he subsided. 

Apollo thought to give her a taste of shock and awe, to command Helios to bring the sun close, to boil the water in its stony riverbed, so she could see the strength his ardor, his _need_. 

Instead, he sighed and rubbed irritably at the spot where Eros (that wicked, nasty boy!) had pricked him, a mosquito bite on his immortal skin. Daphne, distantly, had begun to sing. Not his songs, but her own. His words, such soft, slick words, love poetry, scrolls and scrolls of it, she had blithely torn up. The river water made the ink run. 

 

Soon, he grew sick of waiting and stood, shaking the sand loose from his chiton. She leapt from her rock, her limbs smooth and strong. He came to her and words spilled again from his eager lips. He was no shepherd, uncouth and rough. Delphi and Claros and Tenedos and the royal palace of Patara were devoted to him. He was a son of Zeus! And he could reveal _what was, what is_ , and _what will be_ , that was in his power. Medicine was his invention and -- 

Daphne turned away, unmoved by his resume, repulsed even. She ran. He followed behind, shouting for her.

They ran, over hill and dale, unwearying. She flew ahead, her heart in her throat. Her disdain turned to fear, and the faster she ran, the more she feared. He, racing behind, ran because it was too late to stop, too far to beg. 

Love, he thought, made him swift, though lust and anger acted as sharper goads. 

Her hair streamed behind her, black and green, and leaves intruded onto his sight. There were rocks in her path and she stumbled. Apollo collided into her, wrapped his hands around her waist. She thrashed in his embrace, biting and scratching. He peppered kisses on her neck and face and she snarled, wild. They rocked back and forth, a whirlwind, it was a miracle that they kept on their feet. 

“Father! Remember your promise!” She shouted, and Apollo covered her mouth. 

Her teeth tore at the soft flesh of his palm. He cried out in pain and let her go and in that instant she began to change. Her skin, flushed and brown, smooth and alive, began to roughen and crack. Her arms, thrown across her face split and splintered, her fingers branched out and lengthened. Her legs bound together, her toes drove into the ground. Her face, her mouth, eyes, disappeared. Her hair grew and grew and burst out across her body, green and sharp-edged. 

Laurel leaves. 

Apollo, dumbstruck, tried to embrace her, but she was unmoving and still. 

Later, poets tell that Apollo honored her, Daphne, his first love, by adorning his lyre, his arrows with the pattern of her leaves. It was glory, everlasting, to be crowned with laurels. 

But that was at a later date, for now Apollo cried aloud and tore at Daphne’s bark and her leaves; but he could never have her.


End file.
